Audition Notice – New Theatre Production – Staging October 2024
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Audition Notice - New Theatre Production – Staging October 2024
An Icon Theatre, ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company and Amina Khayyam Dance Company Co-Production, supported by The Historic Dockyard Chatham.
Audition call-out, professional dancers for creation, rehearsals and performances
Apply before Wednesday 18th October
For ages 18+
Icon Theatre, ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company and Amina Khayyam Dance Company with the Historic Dockyard Chatham are auditioning dancers for a new show, directed by Icon’s Artistic Director Nancy Hirst and choreographed by ZooNation’s Associate Artistic Director, Dannielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe, with additional choreography by Amina Khayyam Dance Company’s Artistic Director, Amina Khayyam.
Icon Theatre is an award-winning Medway-based theatre company. We bring together professional artists and communities to create large-scale outdoor, immersive, and site-specific theatre and dance productions.
In October 2024, we will stage a brand-new immersive and devised dance-theatre production at The Historic Dockyard Chatham. Using a mix of choreography, spoken word, original music and projection, the production will tell the story of how The Historic Dockyard Chatham has shaped local and national identity through its connection to the British Empire.
In Icon’s signature style, the production will be created and performed by a 200-strong company of professionals and a community company.
Theatre by, for and with everyone
Icon is an inclusive organisation and an equal opportunities employer. We believe diverse teams enrich the theatre we make, embolden our creativity and strengthen our communities. At Icon, all employees, artists and freelancers are valued, respected and provided with an inclusive environment where their contributions and individuality are recognised and celebrated.
Our aim is to create a diverse and inclusive working environment which reflects the diversity of Medway’s communities, both on and off the stage. We are also committed to using theatre to address inequality by telling diverse stories and by supporting a new generation of diverse theatre-makers.
Icon is dedicated to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do – from how we make theatre to how we recruit. We recognise we have more work to do in this area and have committed to accelerating the pace in which we make change from 2023 to 2026.
What we are looking for and key information
We are looking for dancers with the highest levels of skill and the ability to perform in site-specific settings.
We welcome dancers from all ethnicities and cultural backgrounds who are highly skilled, whose abilities span more than just one genre of dance, including but not limited to Locking, Popping, House dance, Breaking, Krump, African dance, Waacking, contemporary and a strong ability to freestyle.
We want to work with dancers who love to tell stories and feel comfortable doing character work. There will be moments of mass movement and ensemble work as well as moments of dance in smaller groups.
You will be working with Icon Theatre, ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company and at times Amina Khayyam Dance Company.
The production is site-specific and outdoors (under cover) and will be created and performed at The Historic Dockyard Chatham, in Medway (35-minute direct train from central London).
Icon makes shows with communities and as such the successful dancers will be part of a larger cast made up of professional performers, local communities and young people.
Dancers will perform in trainers and will be expected to potentially speak/vocalise at times
Essential criteria
- Must be age 18+ before Thursday 2 November 2023
- Highly skilled physical dance ability
- Comfortable with storytelling through dance
- Comfortable with speaking on stage
- Proficiency in more than one genre of dance
- Ease at picking up material and choreography.
- Ability to perform as part of a wider cast made of community performers and young people.
- Fair, generous and friendly creative who is inspired about how we work.
- Able to work in London and Medway
How Icon make shows
Icon creates acclaimed large-scale, site-specific, promenade and outdoor participatory theatre productions by bringing professional theatre-makers, local communities and young people into collaboration. Our recent productions include If Not Now (February 2022) staged at Rochester Castle, and The Ballad of St John’s Car Park (October 2022) staged at the St George’s Hotel.
Mostly, we create shows in unconventional ways, and in hidden and forgotten spaces and places, everything from old forts to castles, riversides to car parks. We bring a small idea and invite professionals and communities to create the productions with us. We prioritise telling unheard stories from marginalised communities.
Emerging artists, individuals, local groups and schools get involved in our shows’ creation in active partnership with professional creative teams. They might offer their skills backstage, local history, take a leading role alongside a professional performer, support creating costumes, or be part of a mass-dance routine that has been rehearsed in their school’s drama lessons.
Icon uses its productions as an engine for developing young people’s skills and artists of the future, offering work experience and paid placements.
**** “A sharp, impeccably performed and blazingly impassioned piece of theatre.” The Times
“Icon has been ahead of the curve in understanding that the arts have a role to play in bringing people together, helping them be heard by telling their own stories in their own way” Lyn Gardner (Journalist, The Stage)
Dates of engagement
Audition dates
- Monday 15 January – Friday 2 February 2024
- Monday 16 September – Sunday 6 October 2024
Performances Thursday 3 – Saturday 5 October 2024, Medway
All exact dates are subject to change
There will be one contract issued for this engagement. There will be breaks between all periods of activity; however, we are looking for dancers who can commit to all engagement periods.
Application steps and deadline
Application Deadline: Wednesday 18 October 2023, midnight
Audition date: Thursday 2 November 2023
Call back for successful dancers: Friday 3 November 2023
Auditions will be in London; details will be confirmed upon invitation. Dancers must be available for both dates.
The application includes filmed choreography to be recorded and submitted – please plan in advance.
Step 1: apply via online application
Step 2: invited to audition on Thursday 2 November 2023 in London
Step 3: recall in London for successful candidates on Friday 3 November 2023
Strictly no admissions on the day – the audition is by invitation only.
How to apply
Applications are now closed
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